Soil is the growing medium for our food
Without it we could not survive
Soil purifies our waste
Soil is home to plants and animals
It may take up to 100 years to form one inch of topsoil
We are losing so much soil to erosion each year that the lost
soil if loaded into dump trucks parked back to back would
extend to the moon and back.
An earthworm can work a ton of soil a year
•Soil is made up of
mineral grains.
•Water is held between
the grains in the pore
spaces.
•25% of the soil is air.
Oxygen is essential
•Organic matter is
both coarse and fine.
•Bacteria- A thimble of
soil can contain 2
billion bacteria, 30
million fungi
fragments and 100,000
single cell plants and
animals.
Animals making burrows in the soil help bring air and water into the
soil
Generally, Inner Coastal Plain soils are
fertile(they can support hearty natural growth
of a wide variety of plants)
The upper layers of the Inner Coastal Plain
soils are brownish and remain moist between
rains
Outer Coastal Plain soils are very sandy,
infertile, and chemically acidic.
OCP soils capture water well, but it quickly
percolates into the lower layers.
OCP soils have a light color
Blueberries and cranberries are well suited to
Humus
gives the Leaching
topsoil a takes
rich brown minerals
color carried by
water to
the
subsoil
D
In a mature soil
profile, there are
three distinct
layers(horizons) of
the soil. The
undisturbed rock
below the soil is
called the bedrock.
The Ao-horizon
consists of the
highly decayed
organic material
referred to as the
peat and humus.
Humus gives soil
horizon A a rich
brown [Link] see
In the A
horizon,
water
percolates
downward
and carries
minerals as it
goes. This is
called
“leaching.”
Leaching
carries
The B-Horizon is
called the subsoil.
This horizon is where
the leached minerals
from horizon A end
up.
These leached
minerals may color
the subsoil. For
example, the presence
of iron my color the
subsoil red.
Horizon B-Zone of Accumulation of leached minerals
The C-horizon is
called the zone of
weathered bedrock.
When you have a
residual soil, one
formed over the
original bedrock, the
C-horizon resembles
the bedrock, but it is
weathered.
In a residual soil, the
bedrock is below the
C-horizon.
Remember that the
Coastal Plain does not
have bedrock under
the soil profile, but it
Sandy particles are the only particles
which may be large enough to be seen
with the naked eye. Predominantly
sandy soil has a gritty feel (coarse-
textured) when rubbed between the
fingers.
Silt particles are smaller than sand
particles. Predominantly silty soils feel
powdery (like flour) and do not hold
together well when wet, though they
are more cohesive than sandy soils.
Clayey soil has the smallest soil
particles, and many small pore spaces.
Soils with a high number of clay
Loam is the best soil texture particles have a very high water
for growing things. It is a holding capacity and are very fine-
mixture that has useful textured, making them feel smooth
amounts of clay and silt in a and sticky (like soap) when wet.
base of sand.
The top sieve is gravel- set
aside
The second and third sieves
are sand
The fourth sieve is silt
The bottom pan is clay
Coarse-textured soils have a high sand content.
They consist of large particles with uneven surfaces
and because of this, have large pore spaces
These traits make such soils loose and easy to work;
however, the large spaces do not retain water or
nutrients. Water infiltrates sandy soil and percolates
(moves through it) quickly and easily. As a result,
sandy soils are generally dry and infertile.
The dryness of sandy soil contributes to a shortage of
nutrients because of less vegetative growth and,
therefore, less organic matter is produced.
Medium-textured soils known as loams, have
properties in between those of coarse and fine
texture. Silty loams to sandy-clay loams have a
good capacity to retain water without becoming
waterlogged. They are easy to work and form
good clumping mixtures during cultivation.
Loams contain a good supply of nutrients,
necessary for the organisms living in the soil.
Loam or silty soils have a texture which is most
suitable for the greatest variety of living
organisms.
Fine-textured soils range from silty clay to heavy clay.
Heavy clays are like soft plastic when wet and are hard when dry.
This makes them difficult to work.
Clays are often waterlogged and poorly aerated, as well as being
cool. Clay soils absorb and release water (to plants) very slowly.
Air movement within the soil is also very slow. These conditions
mean that clay soils take longer to warm than coarser soils.
A lot of water in the spaces can mean little air is available for
living organisms to carry out cellular respiration and certain
biochemical actions.
Fertile soil contains nutrients. There are major
nutrients and micro nutrients. Major nutrients make
up the bulk of the nutrients in your soil. The most
important major nutrients are :Nitrogen, Potassium and
Phosphorus. Other major nutrients are :Calcium,
Magnesium and Sulfur.
Micronutrients are: Manganese, Iron, Copper, Zinc, and
Boron.
Nutrients need to be balanced and available to the
plant's roots. Organic matter is key to helping
maintain this balance.
Application of lime helps to neutralize acidic soil. The
calcium and magnesium ions in lime will bump some of
the hydrogen ions off the clay particles. The hydrogen is
then leached downward by water and the soil becomes
less acidic.
